Sierra Club Looking Forward to New Fracking Report

MEDIA RELEASE, April 29, 2014

Sierra Club Canada Foundation is looking forward to the release of a report on fracking, due out this week. The Council of Canadian Academies (CCA) was commissioned by Environment Canada to determine what role – if any – the federal government has in regulating the industry.

“We know that fracking involves injecting a secret cocktail of chemicals into the ground and that industry's own data shows their wells leak," said Gretchen Fitzgerald, Director of the Atlantic Canada Chapter of Sierra Club. "We hope the CCA closely examined all available evidence while preparing this important report."

The Sierra Club feels the federal government needs to step up and protect Canadians from the well-documented impacts of fracking. Ohio state geologists recently determined that fracking is linked to earthquakes in the state. Information on the impacts of air quality around fracked wells is also alarming, with unsafe levels of carcinogens and other toxic chemicals in the surrounding area.

"Fracking is literally an earth shattering technology that contaminates our water and our air," says Sierra Club's National Program Director John Bennett. "Methyl chloride, a toxic cleaning solvent, was found in 78% of air samples collected around fracked wells in Colorado."

The contribution of shale gas to climate change emissions – including flaring and leaks from wells and pipelines - can be 20-200% higher than with coal.

"Sierra Club hopes the CCA report will force the federal government to regulate these new dangerous emissions or else we have no hope of ever meeting our international greenhouse gas targets,” said Mr. Bennett.